If you want to know the secret of successful weight loss and management, take a look at the results from The National Weight Control Registry. The participants in the study lost an average of 66 pounds each and kept it off for 5.5 years. Here's how they did it.

The National Weight Control Registry is a database of about 4,000 people who maintained at least a 30 pound weight loss for at least one year.

Although there were variations in how quickly they lost weight and how much, there are four things NWCR members have in common:

90% of them say they exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day

78% eat breakfast every day

75% weigh themselves at least once a week

62% watch fewer than 10 hours of TV per week

These may seem like obvious common sense essentials for weight loss, but they're still important findings. The fact that 89% of the participants used a combination of both diet and exercise reinforces the importance of both.

The dedication to a significant and extensive amount of daily exercise is also notable. Twenty-eight percent of participants used only walking as their exercise. The researchers also put pedometers on a sample of the participants and found they walked about 5.5 to 6 miles a day—far beyond the minimal guidelines.

Frequent weighing is also interesting, since some people think weighing too often is counter-productive when trying to lose weight. Weighing yourself at least weekly could be an "early warning system" to keep you on track for the long term.

See the whole study via the link below or sign up to join the group at www.nwcr.ws.